Chapter XIV: James IV

The new king,
with Angus for his Governor, Argyll for his Chancellor, and with the Kers and
Hepburns in office, was crowned at Scone about June 25, 1488. He was
nearly seventeen, no child, but energetic in business as in pleasure, though
lifelong remorse for his rebellion gnawed at his heart. He promptly put down a
rebellion of the late king's friends and of the late king's foe, Lennox, then
strong in the possession of
Dumbarton Castle,
which, as it commands the sea-entrance by Clyde, is of great importance in the
reign of Mary and
James VI.James III must have paid
attention to the navy, which, under
Sir Andrew Wood, already
faced English pirates triumphantly.
James IV spent much money
on his fleet, buying timber from France, for he was determined to make Scotland
a power of weight in Europe. But at the pinch his navy vanished like a mist.

Spanish envoys and envoys from the Duchess of Burgundy visited
James in 1488-1489; he was in close relations with France and Denmark, and
caused anxieties to the first Tudor king, Henry VII, who kept up the Douglas
alliance with Angus, and bought over Scottish politicians. While
James, as his
account-books show, was playing cards with Angus, that traitor was also
negotiating the sale of Hermitage Castle, the main
hold of the Middle Border, to England. He was detected, and the castle was
intrusted to a Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell; it was still held by
Queen Mary'sBothwell in 1567.
The Hepburns rose to the earldom of Bothwell on the death of Ramsay, a
favourite of James III,
who (1491) had arranged to kidnap
James IV with his
brother, and hand them over to Henry VII, for £277, 13s. 4d.! Nothing
came of this, and a truce with England was arranged in 1491. Through four
reigns, till James VI
came to the English throne, the Tudor policy was to buy Scottish traitors, and
attempt to secure the person of the Scottish monarch.

Meanwhile, the Church was rent by jealousies between the holder of
the newly-created Archbishop of Glasgow (1491) and the Archbishop
of St Andrews, and disturbed
by the Lollards, in the region which was later the centre of the fiercest
Covenanters, - Kyle in Ayrshire. But James laughed away the charges against the
heretics (1494), whose views were, on many points, those of
John Knox. In 1493-1495
James dealt in the usual
way with the Highlanders and "the wicked blood of the Isles": some were hanged,
some imprisoned, some became sureties for the peacefulness of their clans. In
1495, by way of tit-for-tat against English schemes, James began to back the
claims of Perkin Warbeck, pretending to be Richard, Duke of York, escaped from
the assassins employed by Richard III. Perkin, whoever he was, had probably
been intriguing between Ireland and Burgundy since 1488. He was welcomed by
James at
Stirling in November 1495, and
was wedded to the king's cousin, Catherine Gordon, daughter of the Earl of
Huntly, now supreme in the north. Rejecting a daughter of England, and Spanish
efforts at pacification, James prepared to invade
England in Perkin's cause; the scheme was sold by Ramsay, the would-be
kidnapper, and came to no more than a useless raid of September 1496, followed
by a futile attempt and a retreat in July 1497. The Spanish envoy, de Ayala,
negotiated a seven-years' truce in September, after Perkin had failed and been
taken at Taunton.

The Celts had again risen while
James was busy in the
Border; he put them down, and made Argyll Lieutenant of the Isles. Between the
Campbells and the Huntly Gordons, as custodians of the peace, the fighting
clans were expected to be more orderly. On the other hand, a son of Angus Og,
himself usually reckoned a bastard of the
Lord of the Isles,
gave much trouble. Angus had married a daughter of the Argyll of his day; their
son, Donald Dubh, was kidnapped (or, rather, his mother was kidnapped before
his birth) for Argyll; he now escaped, and in 1503, found allies among the
chiefs, did much scathe, was taken in 1506, but was as active as ever forty
years later.

The central source of these endless Highland feuds was the family
of the Macdonalds, Lords
of the Isles, claiming the earldom of Ross, resisting the Lowland
influences and those of the Gordons and Campbells (Huntly and Argyll), and
seeking aid from England. With the capture of Donald Dubh (1506) the
Highlanders became for the while comparatively quiescent; under Lennox and
Argyll they suffered in the defeat of
Flodden.

From 1497 to 1503 Henry VII was negotiating for the marriage of
James to his daughter
Margaret Tudor; the
marriage was celebrated on August 8, 1503, and a century later the great
grandson of Margaret, James
VI came to the English throne. But marriage does not make friendship. There
had existed since 1491 a secret alliance by which Scotland was bound to defend
France if attacked by England. Henry's negotiations for the kidnapping of
James were of April of
the same year. Margaret, the young queen, after her marriage, was soon involved
in bitter quarrels over her dowry with her own family; the slaying of a Sir
Robert Ker, Warden of the Marches, by a Heron in a Border fray (1508), left an
unhealed sore, as England would not give up Heron and his accomplice. Henry VII
had been pacific, but his death, in 1509, left James to face his hostile
brother-in-law, the fiery young
Henry VIII.

In 1511 the Holy League under the Pope, against France, imperilled
James's French ally. He
began to build great ships of war; his sea-captain, Barton, pirating about, was
defeated and slain by ships under two of the Howards, sons of the Earl of
Surrey (August 1511). James
remonstrated, Henry was firm, and the Border feud of Ker and Heron was
festering; moreover, Henry was a party to the League against France, and France
was urging James to
attack England. He saw, and wrote to the King of Denmark, that, if France were
down, the turn of Scotland to fall would follow. In March 1513, an English
diplomatist, West, found James in a wild mood, distraught "like a fey man."

Chivalry, and even national safety, called him to war; while his
old remorse drove him into a religious retreat, and he was on hostile terms
with the Pope. On May 24th, in a letter to Henry, he made a last attempt to
obtain a truce, but on June 30th Henry invaded France. The French queen
despatched to James, as to her true knight, a letter and a ring. He sent his
fleet to sea; it vanished like a dream. He challenged Henry through a herald on
July 26th, and, in face of strange and evil omens, summoned the whole force of
his kingdom, crossed the Border on August 22nd, took Norham Castle on Tweed,
with the holds of Eital, Chillingham, and Ford, which he made his headquarters,
and awaited the approach of Surrey and the levies of the Stanleys. On September
5th he demolished Ford Castle, and took position on the crest of
Flodden Edge, with the deep
and sluggish water of Till at its feet. Surrey, commanding an army all but
destitute of supplies, outmanoeuvred James, led his men unseen behind a range
of hills to a position where, if he could maintain himself, he was upon James's
line of communications, and thence marched against him to Branxton Ridge, under
Flodden Edge.

James was
ignorant of Surrey's movement till he saw the approach of his standards. In
place of retaining his position, he hurled his force down to Branxton, his
gunners could not manage their new French ordnance, and though Home with the
Border spears and Huntly had a success on the right, the Borderers made no more
efforts, and, on the left, the Celts fled swiftly after the fall of Lennox and
Argyll. In the centre Crawford and Rothes were slain, and
James, with the steady
spearmen of his command, drove straight at Surrey.
James, as the Spaniard
Ayala said, "was no general: he was a fighting man." He was outflanked by the
Admiral (Howard) and Dacre; his force was surrounded by charging horse and
foot, and rained on by arrows. But

"The stubborn spearmen still made
goodTheir dark impenetrable wood,"

when James
rushed from the ranks, hewed his way to within a lance's length of Surrey (so
Surrey writes), and died, riddled with arrows, his neck gashed by a
bill-stroke, his left hand almost sundered from his body. Night fell on the
unbroken Scottish phalanx, but when dawn arrived only a force of Border
prickers was hovering on the fringes of the field. Thirteen dead earls lay in a
ring about their master; there too lay his natural son, the young Archbishop of
St Andrews, and the Bishops
of Caithness and the Isles.
Scarce a noble or gentle house of the Lowlands but reckons an ancestor slain at
Flodden.

Surrey did not pursue his victory, which was won, despite sore lack
of supplies, by his clever tactics, by the superior discipline of his men, by
their marching powers, and by the glorious rashness of the Scottish king. It is
easy, and it is customary, to blame
James's adherence to the
French alliance as if it were born of a foolish chivalry. But he had passed
through long stress of mind concerning this matter. If he rejected the
allurements of France, if France were overwhelmed, he knew well that the turn
of Scotland would come soon. The ambitions and the claims of
Henry VIII were those
of the first Edwards. England was bent on the conquest of Scotland at the
earliest opportunity, and through the entire Tudor period England was the home
and her monarch the ally of every domestic foe and traitor to the Scottish
Crown.

Scotland, under James, had much prospered in
wealth and even in comfort. Ayala might flatter in some degree, but he attests
the great increase in comfort and in wealth.

In 1495 Bishop Elphinstone
founded the University of
Aberdeen, while (1496) Parliament decreed a course of school and college
for the sons of barons and freeholders of competent estate. Prior Hepburn
founded the College of St Leonard's in the
University of St
Andrews; and in 1507 Chepman received a royal patent as a printer.
Meanwhile Dunbar, reckoned by some the chief poet of Scotland before
Burns, was already
denouncing the luxury and vice of the clergy, though his own life set them a
bad example. But with Dunbar,
Henryson, and others, Scotland had a school of poets much superior to any that
England had reared since the death of Chaucer. Scotland now enjoyed her brief
glimpse of the Revival of Learning; and
James, like
Charles II., fostered
the early movements of chemistry and physical science. But
Flodden ruined all, and the
country, under the long minority of
James V, was robbed and
distracted by English intrigues; by the follies and loves of
Margaret Tudor; by actual
warfare between rival candidates for ecclesiastical place; by the ambitions and
treasons of the Douglases and other nobles; and by the arrival from France of
the son of Albany, that rebel brother of
James III.

The truth of the saying, "Woe to the kingdom whose king is a
child," was never more bitterly proved than in Scotland between the day of
Flodden and the day of the
return of Mary Stuart
from France (1513-1561). James
V was not only a child and fatherless; he had a mother whose passions and
passionate changes in love resembled those of her brother
Henry VIII.
Consequently, when the inevitable problem arose, was Scotland during the
minority to side with England or with France? the queen-mother wavered
ceaselessly between the party of her brother, the English king, and the party
of France; while Henry
VIII could not be trusted, and the policy of France in regard to England
did not permit her to offer any stable support to the cause of Scottish
independence. The great nobles changed sides constantly, each "fighting for his
own hand," and for the spoils of a Church in which benefices were struggled for
and sold like stocks in the Exchange.

The question, Was Scotland to ally herself with England or with
France? later came to mean, Was Scotland to break with Rome or to cling to
Rome? Owing mainly to the selfish and unscrupulous perfidy of
Henry VIII,James V was condemned, as
the least of two evils, to adopt the Catholic side in the great religious
revolution; while the statesmanship of the Beatons, Archbishops of
St Andrews, preserved
Scotland from English domination, thereby preventing the country from adopting
Henry's Church, the Anglican, and giving Calvinism and Presbyterianism the
opportunity which was resolutely taken and held.

The real issue of the complex faction fight during
James's minority was thus
of the most essential importance; but the constant shiftings of parties and
persons cannot be dealt with fully in our space. James's mother had a natural
claim to the guardianship of her son, and was left Regent by the will of
James IV, but she was the
sister of Scotland's enemy, Henry VIII.Beaton, Archbishop of
Glasgow (later of
St Andrews), with the Earl
of Arran (now the title of the Hamiltons), Huntly, and Angus were to advise the
queen till the arrival of Albany (son of the brother of
James III.), who was
summoned from France. Albany, of course, stood for the French alliance, but
when the queen-mother (August 6, 1514) married the new young
Earl of Angus, the
grandson and successor of the aged traitor, "Bell the Cat," the earl began to
carry on the usual unpatriotic policy of his house. The appointment to the see
of St Andrews was competed
for by the Poet Gawain Douglas, uncle of the new Earl of Angus; and himself of
the English party; by Hepburn, Prior of
St Andrews, who fortified
the Abbey; and by Forman, Bishop of Moray, a partisan of France, and a man
accused of having induced James IV to declare war
against England.

After long and scandalous intrigues, Forman obtained the see.
Albany was Regent for a while, and at intervals he repaired to France; he was
in the favour of the queen-mother when later she quarrelled with her husband,
Angus. At one moment, Margaret and Angus fled to England where was born her
daughter Margaret, later Lady Lennox and mother of Henry Darnley.

Angus, with Home, now recrossed the Border (1516), and was
reconciled to Albany; against all unity in Scotland Henry intrigued, bribing
with a free hand, his main object being to get Albany sent out of the country.
In early autumn, 1516, Home, the leader of the Borderers at
Flodden, and his brother
were executed for treason; in June, 1517, Albany went to seek aid and counsel
in France; when the queen-mother returned from England to Scotland, where, if
she retained any influence, she might be useful to her brother's schemes. But,
contrary to Henry's interests, in this year Albany renewed the old alliance
with France; while, in 1518, the queen-mother desired to divorce Angus. But
Angus was a serviceable tool of Henry, who prevented his sister from having her
way; and now the heads of the parties in the distracted country were Arran,
chief of the Hamiltons, and Beaton, Archbishop of
Glasgow, standing for France;
and Angus representing the English party.

Their forces met at Edinburgh in the street battle
of "Cleanse the Causeway," wherein the Archbishop of
Glasgow wore armour, and the
Douglases beat the Hamiltons out of the town (April 30, 1520). Albany returned
(1521), but the nobles would not join with him in an English war (1522). Again
he went to France, while Surrey devastated the Scottish Border (1523). Albany
returned while Surrey was burning Jedburgh, was once more deserted
by the Scottish forces on the Tweed, and left the country for ever in 1524.
Angus now returned from England; but the
queen-mother cast her
affections on young Henry Stewart (Lord Methven), while Angus got possession of
the boy king (June 1526) and held him, a reluctant ward, in the English
interest.

Lennox was now the chief foe of Arran, and Angus, with whom Arran
had coalesced; and Lennox desired to deliver
James out of Angus's
hands. On July 26, 1526, not far from
Melrose, Walter Scott of
Buccleuch attacked the forces guarding the prince; among them was Ker of
Cessford, who was slain by an Elliot when Buccleuch's men rallied at the rock
called "Turn Again." Hence sprang a long-enduring blood-feud of Scotts and
Kers; but Angus retained the prince, and in a later fight in the cause of
James's delivery, Lennox was slain by the Hamiltons, near Linlithgow. The
spring of 1528 was marked by the burning of a Hamilton, Patrick, Abbot of
Ferne, at St Andrews, for
his Lutheran opinions. Angus had been making futile attacks on the Border
thieves, mainly the Armstrongs, who now became very prominent and picturesque
robbers. He meant to carry James with him on one of these expeditions; but in
June 1528 the young king escaped from
Edinburgh Castle, and
rode to Stirling, where he was
welcomed by his mother and her partisans. Among them were Arran, Argyll, Moray,
Bothwell, and other
nobles, with Maxwell and the Laird of Buccleuch, Sir Walter Scott. Angus and
his kin were forfeited; he was driven across the Border in November, to work
what mischief he might against his country; he did not return till the death of
James V Meanwhile
James was at peace with
his uncle, Henry VIII.
He (1529-1530) attempted to bring the Border into his peace, and hanged Johnnie
Armstrong of Gilnockie, with circumstances of treachery, says the ballad, - as
a ballad-maker was certain to say.

Campbells, Macleans, and Macdonalds had all this while been burning
each other's lands, and cutting each other's throats.
James visited them, and
partly quieted them, incarcerating the Earl of Argyll.

Bothwell and Angus now conspired together to crown
Henry VIII in
Edinburgh; but, in May 1534,
a treaty of peace was made, to last till the death of either monarch and a year
longer.